


The Collector and the Odd Dimension

by Goonipers



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Hoarding, M/M, Sheep, Slash, collecting, trigger: bestality, trigger: mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-06-26 06:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15657480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goonipers/pseuds/Goonipers
Summary: When the Doctor finds a mentally-disturbed patient back in rural Shetland has collected an odd coin, she begins to untangle what happened.





	1. Chapter 1

The Doctor fiddled with the controls. Regeneration had left her somewhat compulsive. She turned the wheel handle and took off the handbrake. She didn't care where it would take her.

The TARDIS was a bit miffed and took her back to Britain, steering towards Wales. They travelled back in time to about the 1200's, then the TARDIS veered off course dramatically. 

The Doctor awoke and stood up from the floor. She checked the display for the date, shrugged, and went off to get changed. She hoped it was Paris, or Venice, or Rome! But they'd be no more Romans left, would there?? It'll all be preachy churchy people. 

She rubbed her hands together. She'd have some fun...

It was rural. She should've brought rubber boots. Somewhere behind her, the TARDIS beeped, bringing up mild activity in the area. Somewhere, there was a portal and a remote control...

It was raining a fine mist of light drizzle. The Doctor put up her hood and stepped out into a field. It had just been churned and was turning to cool mud. Behind her, sheep bleated. 

She shut and locked the TARDIS door and pocketed the key. She turned on her sonic screwdriver and set about triangulating the signal. There was a farmhouse in the distance and the distant crash of waves. She set off for that.

She disturbed a man in the hedgerows, gazing at the sheep. He was wearing black overalls and black leather boots, with a black shirt. She wondered if he was with the church.

He stood up. "Who are you? I haven't seen you before." He turned. "Or your box. Where are you from?" He paused. "God."

He didn't sound surprised; he sounded religious, or mad. "Did God send you?" That confirmed the latter.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?" She noticed he carried a circular, steel box tucked under one arm. 

He noticed she'd noticed and flinched. Then he held it out. "This," he said, "holds all my knick-knacks." He didn't take the lid off. "I'm Skulking McGromit." 

"Skulking?" 

"That's what they call me. I've been skulking for seven years now." He paused. "I like sheep."

The Doctor raised a hand to her mouth, and tried hard not to smile or laugh. He was serious, deadly serious. 

"What do you do with sheep?" she asked. "Draw them?"

"I collect them. I've got over two hundred at home."

"You... collect other people's sheep?!"

"No, I collect my own sheep from the fields. My wife lets them loose by mid-morning each day. It takes all day to get them back. I have to herd them with my hands." He flapped his hands about and the distant sheep baa'ed. 

"I see. No, I don't in fact. Why do you have to collect sheep, young sir?" She hazarded a guess at his age, and it was nagging her that he was, in fact, gay and giving off a strong gaydar, despite his wife. It was too early for civil rights, and too late for Rome and Greece. 

"They have the smeckles, miss. I have to cure it by praying each night upon my flock. They have to watch me and the missus bang at it to cure them of their infidelity. That guy jumps across my hedge every night and try to have his wicked way with my ewes. He has a big--" He stopped. Obviously it was way too soon to introduce a gay relationship, and the Doctor bet that the man wasn't interested in the ewes at all! 

"How do you stop him?" she asked, as he'd obviously seen him naked.

"I used to goes out and fend him off with my crook, but when he wouldn't leave me alone, and he runs awfully quickly for a naked man, I started keeping the sheep indoors. My wife hates it, and makes me keep them in the croft, and in the yard, then we built an enormous great barn--" It didn't look that gigantic to the Doctor, who'd travelled to America, later "--and we started keeping the baby lambs in the house near the Aga. She liked that. We only have one child, miss, who keeps to himself with the dogs. I have plenty of free time..." He trailed off. 

Then he stuck out one hand. "I'm Mr McGromit, ma'am. How do you do?" 

The Doctor shook it. "And I'm the Doctor, again. I'm OK." Her sonic screwdriver beeped in her pocket. "Have you seen anything unusual around here?" 

"No-oh. I've only found gold this morning," he said sadly. "Does it belong to you?" He opened his steel box. 

Inside was a collection of rocks, stones, leaves, sheep wool, broken bits of pottery, broken shards of glass, half a mosaic piece, pieces of dyed wool, scraps of metal, and underneath one such scrap--something gold. 

The Doctor plucked it out, and held it aloft. It was a large coin, embossed with tentacles one side and a star chart the next, and around the rim was gibberish. The telepathic translator couldn't decipher it. 

"Ah," she said, looking at it. "That's what I'm looking for." She wondered if it was a remote control, and whether the portal had a slot. 

McGromit's hand closed over it. "That's not yours," he said. "You're reacting to it wrong, miss."

He put it back in the steel box, and hefted the lid on. "You might not be a thief," he said, looking back at the blue box. "That doesn't look as portable as a cart. How did you get here? God." He tried again. "God sent you." He looked miserable.

"HEY!" cried someone from the next field over. McGromit ducked back into the hedgerow.

The Doctor turned. "Hey, yourself," she said. 

"That's Skulking McGromit, miss. You'll save yourself some trouble not mixing with him. Are you from the Mainland? I've not seen you before." So she was on an island.

"No, I'm just passing through, good sir." 

"God sent her in a blue box," mumbled McGromit. The other man had very good hearing. 

"God has left you, McGromit," he called back. "Stop announcing his name in vain. Miss, he is trouble. He herds all the sheep back to his farmhouse each and every evening. It's rumoured he--" And the man gestured with his hips. 

"No, that is a lie! I've saving them from being--" And McGromit did the hip dance. 

"And from who? Only you can sense him, Skulking McGromit. No one else sees your naked, young man with the muscles." 

Despite his madness, the Doctor felt a tingle up her spine. Sometimes the mad could sense things... others couldn't. 

The Doctor hauled McGromit out of the hedges. "Perhaps I can help," she said. "I'm a Doctor... 's wife," she added to his disapproving glance. 

"Very well," said the man. He went on by, in the mud. 

"Are you really a doctor? God says women can't train as doctors."

"Where I'm from, anyone can be doctors." She slung an arm across his shoulders.

"Where's that?"

"Rome," she invented. 

He stared at her. "No-oh. That's not right. You're lying!" he accused of her. He shrugged off her arm. "We're having tea at five," he said. "You're welcome to come."

The Doctor smiled. "Splendid."


	2. Chapter 2

McGromit had a funny way of walking; all precise. It was like walking with a Galifreyian. His head turned this way and that, not at all when she was talking.   
  
The farmhouse disappeared behind an old oak tree as they approached. They could hear the bleat of the lambs within. There was a boy about nine playing in the yard with some dogs; they were playing fetch with McGromit's crook.   
  
McGromit's shoulders sagged. "That's young Taylor. He's not mine, but my wife's from a former marriage."  
  
"I thought you had a child together with the sheep watching?"  
  
McGromit perked up. "We did? That was fortunate. I've always wanted a son. Or a daughter. Someone to pass onto the family line." He slapped the side of the croft. "Been in the family for generations, this."   
  
Taylor ran to him, crying, "Daddy!" McGromit let him scurry around the legs.   
  
"Everyone looks like a sheep these days," he explained.   
  
The Doctor opened the door and walked in. Tied to the stove was a little old woman. It smelt like mutton. She wore a black pinafore or a tunic, it was hard to tell, and a wide, cream apron. She had wispy, grey hair.  
  
"Who's this?" And even with the telepathic translator on, she had dialect. The Doctor filtered out words such as: dinner, company, could be company, and wife. The latter was strongly pronounced.  
  
The wife appeared from upstairs. She hurried to McGromit and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Who's this?" She was wearing beige dress.   
  
McGromit mumbled, "God sent her in a blue box. She wants my gold."  
  
"I'm looking for a remote control," said the Doctor, hoping it would be translated. "It could be that gold medallion you have."   
  
"Gold? What gold, McGromit?" asked Mrs McGromit or even Mrs Taylor.   
  
He opened up his steel box, and showed everyone a black rock. The Doctor rolled her eyes.   
  
"Your eyes will roll out of your head one day," snapped the old woman.   
  
"Never mind mam," said Mrs McGromit. She fiddled in the open box and produced the large gold coin, then dropped it. "It's decorated by squid," she said. "Who'd a create a thing like that?"  
  
"Aliens," said the Doctor.  
  
"Ach, be with you now," said Mrs McGromit. "You'd be putting all kinds of nonsense in his head with talk like that." She held a baby lamb to herself and let it suck at her fingers.   
  
"Sailors," said the frail, old woman. "There's one that comes and meddles with our sheep every night, says McGromit."  
  
"Stay," implored McGromit. "I'll show you."  
  
"Fine, I'll stay." The Doctor sniffed. "What is that, mutton?" She rubbed her hands together. "I'll trespass on your time longer. What do you do for fun?"  
  
***  
  
The Doctor was bored stiff. Fun involved the frail, old lady--Mrs McGromit's mother--singing songs of the old days, rather badly and out of tune. The sheep bleated as McGromit rounded up another five and sent them scurrying into the farmhouse. One even made it up the stairs.   
  
"Ach, no!" cried Mrs McGromit and heaved the lamb off her lap. The upstairs sheep butted around and farted.  
  
She made her way upstairs, swearing under her breath.  
  
"Manners, Evelyn!" snapped her mother. She dished out grey-looking meat into four tin bowls. There was crusty bread and no butter. From another pot she turned out turnip pottage and purple carrot rings.   
  
"Taylor!" called McGromit. The young boy showed up, dogs underfoot. The old woman hauled out the mutton hipbone and set it on the flagstone floor. The dogs leapt at it. Next, she produced old fish heads and stomped off, muttering about cats.  
  
McGromit went back outside. It was getting rank inside with all the sheep. There wasn't much furniture, just wooden benches either side of the table, and a few stuffed sacks like armchairs along one wall.   
  
Atop one sack was a chicken, asleep. The Doctor sat down next to it, and examined her sonic screwdriver.  
  
Evelyn McGromit came back downstairs and caught her readjusting. "What is that, Mrs Doctor?"  
  
"Nothing, Mrs McGromit, just nothing. Can I have a look at that old coin your husband found, please?"  
  
"Aye, but you won't run off with it." She heaved a pole out and bolted the door with it. She handed the coin over freely.   
  
The sonic screwdriver whirred normally. Not the remote control, but it could have been dropped by someone alien...  
  
McGromit knocked at the door, and his wife let him back in again, reluctantly. He chased in the last dozen or so sheep, and kept the door merely latched until he saw the Doctor with the coin.  
  
"That's my treasure, that is. It's from olden days, like Rome," he said.  
  
"No, it's not. This is a star chart on the back of the Andromeda galaxy, but I can't read the writing. There's nothing else denoting how much it's worth, either."  
  
"Worth? It's worth gold! I could buy a new croft with that, for Taylor when he's older and with wife." He grinned. "I could buy a new flock of sheep!! Haha."  
  
"You won't be having them in the house. It's bad enough as it is."  
  
"I got all the regulars. Bessy, Maisie, Hermit, Kelly, Sandra..."  
  
"How do you tell them apart?" asked the Doctor. Animals weren't her strong point.  
  
"From their eyes. They've all got a knowing look."  
  
"He makes them wear hats in summer," said Evelyn McGromit. "And he's tried collars with bells."   
  
"So everyone can hear them cross the road. It's hard getting them all to market and back again."  
  
"And that's just to buy bread," she added. "Oh, McGromit! Won't you just get well?! I would have never have married you if I known all the hassle you'd be. Why do we have sheep watching us in bed?"  
  
"To cure them of their infidelity, my sweet," he said, kissing her hand. "They learn from God's true example."  
  
"Right," said the Doctor, breaking it up with her hands. "Where did you find this, McGromit?"  
  
"Skulking around," he grinned. "It was out in the road near your blue box--" He broke off. "That scoundrel, I can hear him. He's out there in the barn."  
  
"I hear nothing," said Evelyn McGromit. "Oh, be careful. He's not well," she said to the Doctor.   
  
The Doctor followed him through the door into the barn, where it was devoid of people, but full of rustling sheep. Then a ghostly, blond head popped up. What?!  
  
A ghostly, naked man, very naked between the legs, stood up. "You can see me," he said gaily.   
  
"Yes," said the Doctor. "Who are you?"  
  
"I'm no one much. No can see me since I died, I think. I left a body behind, I think. Over there, out at sea. I can't swim as well as I think," he said.   
  
The Doctor gaped. "You're a ghost?"  
  
"Oh, the man that runs this farm doesn't like me much," he replied gleefully. "I like sheep. They say that young troublemakers such as me should. We're all sheep-sha--"  
  
"That's enough of that," said McGromit, striding in with a pitchfork. "You stop telling my Doctor of your wicked ways."  
  
"I haven't had any witch way. I don't like women."   
  
I've found a gay ghost, thought the Doctor. And I've got a gay sheep farmer, who doesn't know it.  
  
She held up the coin, large enough to be a Roman medallion. "Have you ever seen this before?"  
  
"Yes, I put it in my pocket before it fell straight through. Yes, I have clothes. I take them off before I hit this farm. It grows good vegetables. Fish heads, not so much. Pardon, mister? The cats eat mice."  
  
"So, you have to eat and drink and can take off clothes," said the Doctor. "That doesn't sound like a gay--a normal ghost."  
  
"I'm a gay fellow," said the ghost and capered around, everything dangling and swinging.   
  
She took out her sonic screwdriver and it whirred in his direction. "I think--I think you're trapped in another dimension!" the Doctor cried. "There's a portal in this area. It must be malfunctioning!"  
  
"A doorway to another place?" asked the ghost. The Doctor wondered if telepathic translation would catch up, but it didn't.  
  
"No, no, I would've remembered fairies. All I remember is going overboard. I say, do you understand what he's saying? It's all gibberish to me. I don't speak Scottish."  
  
"Where are you from?"  
  
"Norway. We fish and we trade over Britain's way. We're very friendly." He ruffled his pale hair.  
  
"What's your name?"   
  
"I... don't have one. I have my Master's name, which I don't care to. I'm nicknamed... Fluffy. The hair, ma'am."  
  
"Of course, of course, you just sound like a pet, that's all." The Doctor tried not to laugh. "McGromit, Fluffy. And, of course, Fluffy, McGromit."  
  
Fluffy held out a hand. "Pleased to meet you, and our guest who can understand both our tongues."  
  
McGromit shook it. "What did he say, Doctor? Does he like sheep?"  
  
"I think he likes sheep like you like sheep. He's from Norway."  
  
"Aye," said McGromit. "They invaded us once, the Vikings, and took all our women for their own. We're all descended from them."  
  
"It's funny," said Fluffy. "I can understand you as you speak to us both at the same time. Isn't that grand?"  
  
"Can you go look for your clothes?" asked the Doctor. "I'm the Doctor, by the way."  
  
"Ach, you cannae keep taking your husband's title for your own," grumbled McGromit, who'd been fine with it a moment earlier.   
  
Fluffy led them out the barn, where McGromit flung his pitchfork into some hay. They wandered back through the yard and out into the cobbled road. It was some time before they found a bush where Fluffy had left his fur cape and shirt and trousers. His shoes looked lightweight. Despite happily being naked, he went behind the bush to re-don his clothes.   
  
"We're calling for help," said McGromit suddenly to the Doctor. "HELP!!!"   
  
"What?" she said. "Keep your voice down."  
  
"You've solved my sheep bender problem," he said, smiling beatifically.   
  
The Doctor shushed him. "You can't say that, it's homophobic." She forgot the times. His eyes crossed. "How did that translate?!"  
  
"Terribly," said Fluffy, re-emerging. "You can get shut up for that." He fluffed up his fur cape around the collarbone.   
  
The Doctor flicked and spun the gold coin. It landed, tentacles up, in her palm. "We'd better asked around," she said to the approaching throng of people.   
  
"Look, it's Skulking McGromit with another woman!" called one neighbour. They were from the small hamlet close-by.   
  
The Doctor held the gold coin up. "Have anybody seen this before?" she called. Most of them shook their heads.  
  
Fluffy laughed. "Can anyone see me?" No one reacted. He gaped his cape and ran a hand down his trousers. "Anyone? Cor!"  
  
McGromit tried to hold his hand, but Fluffy shook him off.   
  
"Found your sheep thief, yet?!" called one villager.   
  
"Yes, we have, actually," said the Doctor. They laughed, mostly at McGromit.   
  
"I never stole no sheep," admitted Fluffy. "It's lovely and warm in that barn. Eggs good too, from the hens."  
  
"Never mind what you did to the sheep," said the Doctor out the corner of her mouth.  
  
Fluffy sagged. "They always told me, if you can't find a woman, find a--"  
  
"--sheep," finished McGromit. "I have loads, before I met my wife. I breed them, special."  
  
The Doctor patted him on the arm. She turned her attention to the villagers. "Has anyone seen anything... queer?"  
  
"Him. McGromit. Queerest fellow I've ever set eyes on," shouted one man.  
  
"I meant like a... portal?"  
  
"No fairy stones around here. Try mainland again."  
  
"Yeah, go back from where ye came from. Our church won't put up with the likes of you!!"   
  
"What use's a woman finding gold and not keeping it?!"   
  
After they had left, one young woman stuck her hand up. "The fairy portal's not too far from here, over that copse and behind the stream where sheep drink. But it's not made of gold," she added. "Those fairies can be vicious. The sheep come back with wounds." She left.  
  
The Doctor led a grumbling McGromit on the sins of young women, and Fluffy, who was happy again, through the copse and to where McGromit's sheep would have been if they weren't locked in a farmhouse far away.   
  
"Where do the sheep drink, McGromit?" asked Fluffy, through the Doctor, who was doing some translating.   
  
"Roound here," he said, with a strong accent. Their accents were getting stronger, the more the Doctor abused the translation circuit.   
  
A small spring bubbled up, underfoot, and fed into a larger channel. It was barely visible, covered by fronds and mosses. The Doctor followed it back down into the copse where it wound round a tree, its roots dangling into the water.   
  
Behind the tree was a portal. It was circular, not square, and beyond lay the remote control. But the portal wasn't active. You could see through, but not access it.   
  
"Fluffy!" cried the Doctor. "You try."  
  
Fluffy waded through the water, soaking his shoes, and clambered up, holding onto the tree for support. He raised an arm and put it through.   
  
"I need the remote control," she said, encouraging him further.   
  
Fluffy fell through the portal and tumbled head over heels. He snatched up the remote control and held it out like a weapon. It was golden and covered in lots of square, black buttons.   
  
The Doctor held up the sonic screwdriver and began to work the inner gubbins of the remote control. It started to smoke.  
  
"Fire!" announced Fluffy, and a laser jet shot out the end.   
  
"Voice activated!" said the Doctor, happily. "Say, 'Activate portal', Fluffy."  
  
"Activate doorway," said Fluffy. The portal flickered and deactivated. The Doctor and McGromit walked through, holding onto the tree for support.   
  
McGromit breathed in air fumes. "Where are we?" he asked, coughing. He turned around. He could see the tree framed in a golden band. There was a short tower adjacent to it with a slot.  
  
The Doctor wandered around near pools of boiling water and steam rising off them.   
  
"Looks like the mountains of home," said Fluffy. "Animals shelter there when it snows." Fluffy looked opaque here, human and real, and so did his clothes. "I don't know this though. It smells... so smoky like volcanoes."  
  
"Yes, sulphur," said the Doctor. "Hello?" she called. No one replied. They wandered back through the steam to McGromit, where he was getting excited by something.  
  
He'd found a sheep. It was on the other side of the portal, eating grass by the spring. McGromit kept making sweeping arm gestures, trying to get it through the portal. Eventually, he went back and pushed it through, rump first.  
  
"Baaa!" went the sheep and almost trampled Fluffy, heading for water. It jumped into a boiling pool. "BAAAA!!" It jumped out again, legs scalding, and butted the Doctor.  
  
"This is Nora," said McGromit proudly. "We've raised her since she was a babe. She has a notch on the ear," he said to their looks.   
  
"I understand people naming dogs," said Fluffy. "But I cannot tell sheep apart."  
  
"I can barely tell humans apart," said the Doctor. "It's all down to training." She located the coin in her pocket and experimented by putting the coin in the tower's slot. It rattled.  
  
She put her hand in and extracted it. She put Fluffy's remote control in. The portal flickered off, and they were left staring at a golden ring with its bottom sunk into the soil.   
  
The Doctor took the remote control out and nothing happened. The sheep Nora baa'ed and butted Fluffy in the leg. He caressed her ears.  
  
McGromit finally decided to explore. He found a stone in the dirt and collected it into his pocket. He had a big pocket in the front of his overalls, and it poked out where he'd put the stone. Next, he stooped and wandered around with one hand in the dirt, looking for treasures.   
  
The Doctor hummed, and pressed each remote control button in turn. Nothing happened.  
  
"It's voice activated, you said," said Fluffy, reminding her.  
  
"Open Portal," she said. Nothing happened. "Fire!" The remote control shot backwards, startling the sheep. Nora bolted past the ring and skittered around pools of lava.   
  
"Baaaaa!" Nora called. McGromit got up and chased her.   
  
"Hmmm," went the Doctor. "Activate Portal." The buttons seemed useless, unless one was an OK button to confirm your choice.   
  
The portal flicked on but showed nothing but empty sea. Fluffy jutted his head out. "I think this is where I fell off-boat," he said. "I can see Shetland from here."  
  
A tidal wave swept through the bottom of the golden ring, and almost swept Fluffy out to sea if the Doctor had not grabbed him. Behind the portal, Nora the sheep baa'ed and bleated as McGromit swore.   
  
The Doctor flipped the remote control over. "Needs batteries." She pressed her sonic screwdriver to the laser port and charged it up. Turning it over, the Doctor pressed the golden coin to the laser port. "Fire!" It heated up.   
  
Taking the coin, the Doctor fed it into the slot, to see if heat would reactivate the portal. It did. It showed woodland again, but not the tree they'd used to climb in with. This was thicker and denser and looked scary.   
  
"Anywhere you know, McGromit?" asked the Doctor. She turned to see him shake his head.   
  
Suddenly, a black bear popped up. "Aargh!" cried Fluffy, taking the remote control. "Fire!"   
  
A laser fired past the bear and etched into the wood. The bear dove for cover.  
  
The Doctor retrieved the coin and the portal deactivated again.  
  
"What was that?" asked McGromit. Fluffy was shaking.  
  
"They don't have bears in Shetland? You lucky, lucky people," muttered Fluffy. "Still, bear fur is warm and you survive winter in it."  
  
"We have Shetland ponies," said McGromit, without thinking. "And rabbit." Nora baa'ed. "And sheep and livestock."  
  
"I have no idea how you all survive winter. You must get terrible ocean swells and storms."   
  
Nora went up to the golden tower and butted it. Next, she stepped through the deactivated ring and disappeared.   
  
McGromit gaped. "Where did she go??" He ran up to the ring and disappeared himself. Next, Fluffy and the Doctor wandered through, Fluffy still holding the remote control.   
  
***


	3. Chapter 3

They found themselves knee-deep in the spring, lower downstream, holding a bleating, smelly sheep. Upstream, they could see the tree they'd used for support.  
  
Nora shook them all off and headed away through the copse to the field. She joined the rest of the sheep, including Sandra and Hermit. Obviously, Evelyn McGromit had let them all loose in the field again.  
  
The Doctor prevented McGromit from rounding them all up again. He seemed upset, until Fluffy patted his arm.   
  
The Doctor smiled inwardly. They seemed to be getting on well, those two...  
  
They headed back for the farmhouse.  
  
***  
  
Fluffy kept hold of the golden remote control and stopped that old, frail woman who was Evelyn's mother from getting hold of it. "Steer clear," he advised her. She spoke some Scandinavian, mostly sailor talk.   
  
The Doctor wondered about Evelyn's father, and smiled. The old woman looked put-out, serving up left-overs of mutton to all three of them. Next, she brought out cold, turnip pottage and bread. She poured them a flagon of well water each.  
  
"What happened to the sheep?" asked McGromit through chattering teeth. He moved closer to the Aga.   
  
"Sheep-smeep!" said Evelyn. "I've had enough. I'm leaving, and I'm taking Taylor's boy with me. And mother too. We're staying with my brother."  
  
"But-but you're my wife. We cannot divorce. It's against Bible law!" He clawed at his face. "Whoever shall look after me?"  
  
"Fluffy!" said the Doctor, desperate to matchmake two gay men. "He'll stay with you, for a while anyway."  
  
"We cannot speak the same language," he implored the Doctor. "Besides, whatever can two men get up to? They cannot make a child."  
  
"They can try," suggested the Doctor with a wink. "The sheep might prefer it."  
  
"You allow sheep in the bed?" asked Fluffy to McGromit.   
  
McGromit nodded. "I do, to remind them of their fertility. It's how we get baby lambs each spring and summer."  
  
"I'll leave you with a translation circuit," added the Doctor. "Don't sell this now," she said. She took the golden coin and tapped her sonic screwdriver to it. It whirred and hummed. "There! That should do it."  
  
She flipped the coin and McGromit caught it.   
  
"I can't keep calling you McGromit," said Fluffy. "What's your nickname?"   
  
"Skulker," said McGromit truthfully.   
  
"Skulker, it is," said Fluffy, picking up a flagon and drinking to it. He flung an arm across McGromit's shoulders. "This is the start, my friend."  
  
Evelyn returned from upstairs with her family, each carrying a sack of clothes and belongings. "Sorry, Mrs Doctor," she said. "But we're through. Please don't spread gossip or lies about what happened."  
  
The Doctor held up her hands. "I won't."  
  
Evelyn nodded. "He's yours to look after then." She left with her family and the dogs. The Doctor, who was still in shock about the romantic hint, suspected that they were even taking the cats and hens.   
  
The Doctor rubbed her hands. Time to get cracking.  
  
***  
  
The Doctor got Skulker and Fluffy in bed together. "Look, it's easy. Just put your arm over his back. I've done this a dozen times, as a man. Before I was a woman, in fact. And I got up to quite a bit with the Master when I was younger."  
  
"Doctor," said Skulker/McGromit. "I don't know what you're talking about." The coin between them on the pillow echoed the words in a faint Norwegian accent.   
  
Fluffy said, "I want to be on top. I've always been on top with a woman." He switched places with Skulker. "If you go on all knees..." he began.  
  
Skulker looked out of the window. "All the sheep are in the field," he wailed. "They'll get cold."  
  
"They're sheep," said the Doctor. "They have lots of big, fluffy woollen coats. Sorry, Fluffy." The man shrugged. "Now, try again. Get him propped up on pillows, and use the massage oil I gave you."   
  
"This is used for cooking like a woman, Doctor," complained Skulker, as Fluffy prepared him.   
  
"Stop being sexist. Just because I happen to be a woman now, Skulker..."   
  
Something banged loudly outside. The sheep bleated down in the yard where the barn door had been opened.   
  
"I'll deal with it," said the Doctor, picking up the remote control. "You two... get on with pleasuring yourselves."  
  
The Doctor left the gay men to it, and climbed down the stone staircase. She went past the table clustered with bowls and flagons, and opened the Aga door. She fired the remote control's laser into it and took out a stick of wood on fire.   
  
She heaved open the pole bolting the door, and strode out into the twilight night. Goats spilled out of the barn and mingled with the sheep. The Doctor fought her way past animals to the edge of the field.   
  
"Who's there?" she called, holding up the fiery torch. "Are you looking for this?" She held the remote control so that fire glinted off its golden surface.  
  
" y e s " said a low voice. " m i n e "   
  
"You don't sound very sophisticated," insisted the Doctor. "Is there someone else I can speak to?"  
  
" n o . m i n e " It sounded eager. " o u r s . o u r   t e c h n o l o g y "   
  
The Doctor flipped it left-handed in mid-air and caught it again. "How does it work?"  
  
" i t   t a l k s . b o u g h t   i t   t h a t   w a y "   
  
"What do all the buttons do? I needed to charge it, by the way."   
  
" t a l k s " Obviously, the voice wasn't very sophisticated. The Doctor handed it over, nonetheless, to talking mid-air.   
  
"In another dimension, are we?" asked the Doctor, feeling foolish, like she'd just been conned. She made a grab at the remote control and it floated quickly out of reach. It disappeared.  
  
"Hello?"   
  
The Doctor turned. It was getting chilly. "Good bye, then." She noticed that the croft's upper window had steamed up, and smiled. They'd worked it out.   
  
She thought of heading back indoors and sleeping in a sacky armchair, but decided against it. She'll just get in the way.  
  
"Shoo!" she said to the sheep. "Go on, get!" She chased them out into the field where she'd left the TARDIS. She unlocked the door, and got in.   
  
It was good to be back.  
  
THE END  
  



End file.
